Tonight, the moon will be closest to the Earth than it has been in the last twenty years! If you get a chance tonight, go out and take a look 😉 If it is warm enough where you are, sit a few minutes and contemplate the meaning of life! It should be a really awesome sight!
And tomorrow, of course, HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING!!!!
Light and Love
Sister Bridget
With our Spellmaker Family's Annual Sobo Prosperity Ritual approaching, naturally our favorite little Sobo song pops in our heads 🙂 What other songs might we play during this ritual? Remember, Sobo is considered one of the lwa of the sky and is said to control lightning, thunder, and rain. Bade is considered to control the wind. Together, they have control of the elements of nature. Due to their elemental powers, they are often called upon to help us feel secure! Think of terms such as "raining money," "pennies from heaven," etc.
Here are a few to start us off…..
Money for Nothing- Dire Straights
Pay Me My Money Down- Springsteen
Then, one of my all time favorites, the Money Song by Monty Python 🙂
Do you have a favorite song about money? Post yours here and you may win a prize!
Light and Love
Sister Bridget
The Money Song by Monty Python
I've got ninety thousand pounds in my pyjamas.
I've got forty thousand French francs in my fridge.
I've got lots of lovely lire.
Now the Deutschmark's getting dearer,
And my dollar bills would buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
There is nothing quite as wonderful as money.
There is nothing quite as beautiful as cash.
Some people say it's folly,
But I'd rather have the lolly.
With money you can make a splash.
There is nothing like a newly minted pound.
Money, money, money, money.
Everyone must hanker
For the butchness of a banker.
It's accountancy that makes the world go 'round.
You can keep your Marxist ways,
For it's only just a phase,
For it's money, money, money makes the world go 'round.
…Money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, moneeeeey!
Hey there!
A Red velvet cake is a cake with a dark red, bright red or red-brown color. It is usually prepared as a layer cake with either a vanilla or chocolate flavor, topped with a creamy white icing. Common ingredients are buttermilk, butter, flour, cocoa, and beetroot or red food coloring (beetroot is traditionally used). The amount of cocoa used varies in different recipes. Cream cheese frosting is most commonly paired with the cake, as well as buttercream.
A couple of years ago I tried making a Red Velvet Cake for our Valentine's Day Ritual. It was my first attempt, and I think it came out alright. But each year I look for some new recipe for this yummy southern cake to try out. This is the one I will be trying this year. I think cupcakes will be a new take, and I can spread the offerings out over a few days! It looks totally yummy! For those less ambitious, Duncan Hines has a mix which is very good as well 🙂
Chef Jeff’s Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing
Las Vegas, Nevada
Makes 12 to 16 cupcakes
Red velvet cake has been a very popular dessert in the South for a long time. There’s a lot of controversy on how to make it best. Chef Jeff, who always wanted to be a baker, likes to keep it simple, using classic ingredients and just a bit of extra sugar. His family likes it sweet.
2 cups all purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
pinch of salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons red food coloring
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1½–2 cups granulated sugar
Cream Cheese Icing
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1½–2 cups powdered confectioners’ sugar
½ pinch salt
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350º F. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda and salt, and set aside. In a separate medium bowl, whisk buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and white vinegar, and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk cocoa powder and food color until it becomes a paste. With a table top or hand-held mixer in a large bowl, beat the softened butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl, then beat 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add half of flour mixture and beat on low speed about 45 seconds until incorporated, then add half the buttermilk mixture and beat until combined. Repeat, adding remaining flour mixture, then remaining buttermilk mixture. Beat until thoroughly incorporated.
Line cupcake pans with paper cupcake liners. Spoon batter into paper liners until ¾ full. Place pans in oven on center rack. Bake cupcakes until a toothpick can be inserted in the center and come out clean, 22–25 minutes. Remove pans from oven and let cool at room temp.
Icing
Using tabletop or a hand-held mixture, add all ingredients. Beat on medium-high until mixture is fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping bowl as needed. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Assembly
After cupcakes have cooled, remove cream cheese icing from refrigerator. Using pastry spatula or butter knife, spread desired amount of icing on each cupcake.
Happy Baking!
Sister Bridget
Just in time for our February month long Family ritual to Erzulie Freda!
Customized Voodoo Lamps to the Power Couple Ogoun and Erzulie Freda! Harness the power of this couple's love in a customized lamp ritual performed for your specific request.
Introductory Special for the month of February, the Power Couple Lamp is priced the same as the Voodoo Lamp to Ogoun 🙂 After ordering, just put "Power Couple Lamp" on your form, along with your special request. It's that simple! If you have any questions about this special offering, please email me at bridget@spellmaker.com
This is going to be a wonderful month! I can feel it already 🙂
In Service,
Sister Bridget
Hello everyone! In reading my dear Khouzhan Delilah's post about "I'm Losing Faith" I felt it was a good time to repost this that I has posted a few years ago at Easter. It isn't Easter yet, obviously, but faith has no season.
Faith is not an easy task! Most of all I believe you should have faith in yourself before anything else! :-) After that, the rest of what you have faith in is up to you!
Love, Mambo
———————
REPRINTED FROM 2008: Greetings friends! Of course, as many of us celebrate the Easter holiday today, I cannot help but have my thoughts turn to Spring, renewal, and another chance to grow something wonderful. Every year at this time, I feel refreshed and renewed of spirit – just by the very fact that the plants are starting to bud, my mother-in-law in preparing her garden for the Victory feast that she grows every year, and I do my annual Easter egg hunt for my grandchildren.
Resurrection is also an integral part of the thoughts of Easter and spring. The story of the resurrection of Christ reminds me that faith is a powerful tool in our lives. If one is a true believer in the Christian faith, then you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven! That is a powerful faith!
One of the challenges we often have with faith is it is one of those things that no one can truly explain successfully. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
I have spoken many times about how easy it is to have any kind of faith when things are going well, but when things are not going well our faith seems to lag. We wonder if there is anyone anywhere actually out there listening to our pleas! Is there where you are right now? Is you faith flagging? Questioned? Lost altogether? Can your faith be resurrected? Or will it just lie dormant until things get good for you again and THEN you can believe that there is "something" out there helping us in our day-to-day lives? And when things do get good again, will you just figure it is about time something good happened, or will you believe that a power stronger than your own human fraility reached out and helped you?
Personally I always believe that Les Lois, God, the Saints, and our Ancestors are ALWAYS listening. I also believe that we may not always get what we want. I would never deign to try to explain why that is; my belief is that when I don't get what I want, there is a reason for it. Sometimes I find out the reason later, sometimes I may never know.
Sometimes I can feel my faith waivering: Where are they? Why can't I have what I want right now? Where is my candy? I know that happens to you, too! But it's okay, that petulant six-year-old child lives in all of us. I think the important thing to remember to do is even in your darkest moment allow yourself some faith. Even if it is just the tiniest shred of faith, it is still a powerful thing. Have no doubt: I have had many crises of faith; some really terrible things have happened in my life. But that candle of faith has always shined in my heart even though it's little flame has been pretty small sometimes. Don't let anything blow out the candle in your heart!
So on this day when a large portion of the world is celebrating the Resurrection, think about whether or not your faith needs resurrecting. What can you do to help that along? The answer is different for everyone. Sometimes counting what blessings you HAVE received in life can be helpful, but that is not always the answer for everyone. Sometimes those blessings seem too few and far between! So there is no easy answer to renewing and resurrecting your faith. However, I do encourage you to try, sometimes just the very act of trying has profound effects.
I wish you all peace, love, harmony, health, and most of all, faith: Faith in yourself, faith in your abilities, and faith in being part of the great Cosmic Consciousness of humankind.
Love, light, and peace, Mambo Sam
“When you have come to the edge Of all light that you know And are about to drop off into the darkness Of the unknown, Faith is knowing One of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or You will be taught to fly”
Hello everyone! Well, it seems like Christmas just passed and we are talking about our annual Valentine's Day Ritual to Erzulie Freda! As the years have passed in doing this ritual, I find that I look forward to it more and more.
First off, there is the shopping for it! As many of you know, we are pretty firm believers in Dollar Store Voodoo, with all the shiny trinkets and doo-dads that can be used to make a great altar. Of course, we have many luxurious and special items for Erzulie Freda that we have collected over the years, but it is really a lot of fun to put together the Valentine's altar with, well, Valentine's goodies!
Second, I have noticed over the years how the petitions that people send in have evolved. In the beginning, the petitions seemed very cut-and-dried: " I love Fred (or Frederica), please let him/her love me." Those petitions have evolved into asking for love for everyone and all kinds of love – the love that peace would bring, love for children, charitable love, brotherly love, etc. Many have sent in petitions for those they knew were in different kinds of need. So petitions for healing love, financial love, and job love have abounded, too!
I certainly do not see anything wrong with that at all! Just the very word "love" encompasses such a rich variety of meanings from loving ice cream to loving our husbands, wives, children, parents, and everything beyond and in between! Looking at Valentine's Day as an opportunity to experience and share love of all kinds paints a beautiful broad spectrum of love that goes beyond paper hearts and yummy chocolates!
As we prepare for this coming Valentine's Ritual, I propose that we all see how creative we can get in our petitioning this year! What forms of love can you radiate, choose to spread, and make a wish about? Don't worry about sending in petitions that don't seem like the "norm!" There is NO norm when it comes to love – it is supposed to be open, crazy, fabulous, and it is supposed to mean whatever you personally want it to mean! So don't be stopped by what you think someone else thinks you should be petitioning! Send all your open-armed, open-minded, open-spirited petitions right on in! (See the link above!).
Love, light, and peace,
Mambo Samantha Corfield
www.spellmaker.com
Good morning, everyone! As we all head back to work in the shiny new year, many thoughts turn to makeovers, resolutions, changing one’s self. The beginning of a new year is always a great time to make those resolutions to change things that we were not so happy with last year!
I have noticed with myself that I often tend to go overboard on resolutions, like so many people do! Unfortunately, that is a great way to set yourself up for failure. But, I do believe that there is a great deal of validity in bringing in the new year with a new version of yourself. Sometimes it might just be a matter of firmly deciding to leave last year in the past where it belongs. If you had a particularly bad year in 2010, now is a great time to decide to try to let go of whatever negativity, pain, or trauma that you had. You CAN take it with you, but why? Even if problems of the past are still unresolved, you can leave the last months of negativity behind – cleanse yourself of them, and decide that this is a NEW beginning to solving old problems. Sure, we sell products for cleansing – Lady Samantha’s Hex Removal Kit, white candles, Milk of Damballah white bath, etc. and those are great to use. However, sometimes just making a very resolute promise to yourself to start over, even if it is with old challenges, can be very effective!
Sometimes we cannot see how to change or, with some folks, why! I get tons of letters from people who can tell me exactly how they want their intended partner to change, but very little of how they could or should change. Making a resolution to be more self-aware, take responsibility for some of what is going on in your life, could be just the thing to help some people. I am not talking about blaming yourself for everything that happens – that is just as unhealthy as being totally unaware of what role you play in your own life. Look for the balance in your life – drop the “poor pitiful me” victim attitude OR the “everything is my fault” martyr attitude. Instead realize that you cannot control everything, but you can control your own actions, attitudes, and self-awareness. Now that is a resolution!
So keep those resolutions realistic but be willing to accept, create, or believe in a miracle!
Love, light, and peace,
Mambo Samantha Corfield
www.spellmaker.com
Hello everyone and a big wish for a Happy New Year to all! It is always so invigorating and exciting to start a brand new year. I hope that your 2011 will be filled with wonder, joy, excitement, and magick!
Looking out over the Spellmaker 2011 plans, it is great to see some old favorites coming up – the annual Erzulie’s Valentine’s Day Ritual, the start up again of the Free Prayer Group in February, of course the annual St. Patrick’s Day ritual to Sobo – not to mention that we will be doing another video voodoo conference this year! Plus, we are planning to do a big free ancestor ritual to celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of my father on 11/11/11. It will be a great birthday party and an open party to honor your own ancestors.
Needless to say, there will be more public events that we will be doing, so please do stay tuned for more info!
In the meantime, take care of yourselves and have a safe and peaceful holiday weekend. Love to all!
Mambo Samantha Corfield
www.spellmaker.com
Hello there-
We have so many clients writing with prayer requests for their beloved pets, that Mambo Sam and I have decided it was time to form a Prayer List specifically for this purpose.
Requests may be submitted to prayforpets@spellmaker.com and myself and a few dedicated Khouzhan’s will attend to each request.
Please feel free to pass along a link to this page or the email address to anyone you think could benefit.
Light and Love
Sister Bridget
de la Familie Fleurette-Beauchamp-Corfield
O God, source of life and power, Who feedeth the birds of the heavens, increase our tenderness towards all the creatures of Thy hand. Help us to refrain from petty acts of cruelty, or thoughtless deeds of harm to any living animal. May we care for them at all times, especially during hard weather, and protect them from injury so that they learn to trust us as friends. Let our sympathy grow with knowledge, so that the whole creation may rejoice in Thy presence.
by Albert Schweitzer
Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our friends the animals,
especially for animals who are suffering;
for animals that are overworked, underfed and cruelly treated;
for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars;
for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry;
for all that must be put death.
We entreat for them all Thy mercy and pity,
and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion
and gentle hands and kindly words.
Make us, ourselves, to be true friends to animals,
and so to share the blessings of the merciful.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, not so much to be understood as to understand, not so much to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.
Hi All,
I just wanted to say what a pleasure it has been getting to speak with some new clients during 911 readings these last few weeks. It is really rewarding to get to connect with you all and help get you out with your cases. Coming soon- readings via Skype and Adobe Video Chat room 😉
Light and Love
Sister Bridget